


Memory & Desire

by ishafel



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He does all of it for Lisa.</p><p>Remixed here: http://community.livejournal.com/remixredux09/19514.html#cutid1</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memory & Desire

If he keeps his job, he keeps his memories of Lisa, he keeps the last five years of his life. There is nothing he won't do to make that happen.

If he dies today it won't matter, except that he's the only one left who remembers Lisa the way she was. He's the only one who knows how beautiful she was when she was Lisa, how kind she was: he's the only one who remembers how she liked her coffee with too much milk and no sugar, how she talked too much when she was nervous, how she kissed him like a sailor coming home to port; he's the only one who remembers when she loved him.

If he dies today, someone else will have to clean him up the way he had to clean up Suzie, the way he had to clean up Lisa, and he doesn't think he can stand to have them touch him even when he's dead. Not today.

Jack is in his office waiting for Ianto to choose between the Retcon and the gun. But it doesn't have to end like that. He's afraid, which surprises him, because you have to care to be afraid, and he didn't think he cared. He's just starting to realize he doesn't want to die.

He doesn't knock on the door before he goes in. Jack is behind the desk, with the gun in his hand, and his eyes are as cold as they were when he shot Lisa. They talked about him, at Torchwood One. They said he was mad. Ianto knows now that they were right. "Jack?" he says.

"Ianto? I thought I'd have to come after you. Which is it, then?"

"Neither," Ianto says, and he comes around behind the desk, and Jack stays here he is, watching. Ianto could rush him. Maybe he could even get the gun. Maybe he could even shoot Jack. But the others would come after him: Owen and Gwen and Tosh, and what's left of Torchwood One and Two. He could bring himself to kill Jack, he thinks, and maybe Owen. But he can't kill them all.

And so he kneels where he is, in front of Jack, and he puts his hands on Jack's thighs. "What if there were something else I could do?" he says. "Something else I could do for you. To make up for what I did."

Jack's eyes are blue, the very pale blue of a wolf's eyes, and they never change. Ianto's watched him since he came back to Wales, watched for a moment of weakness, a second of humanity. There hasn't been one. There's nothing human in Jack. But this close to him, Ianto can hear him breathe, can hear the way his breath hitches at the feel of Ianto's hands on him.

"What are you suggesting?" Jack asks, and Ianto knows he's won, if he can only bring himself to go through with it. He reaches up and unclips Jack's braces, unbuttons and unzips Jack's fly. Jack doesn't say anything else, doesn't help except to raise his hips a little so that Ianto can draw his trousers and his pants down.

It would be easier to do this with his eyes closed, but he thinks Jack might see it as cheating. And he wants to suffer as much as Jack wants him to. He's had this done to him before, but he's never done it, and suddenly he isn't sure how to start. But he hitches himself closer, and he leans in, and he sees Jack's penis stir.

"I want to live," he says, and he slides his hand under it. It's heavier than he expected, and it hardens as he closes his fingers around it. He doesn't look at Jack as he takes the head of it into his mouth. It isn't as bad as he thought it would be. Jack tastes like skin and soap, warm and clean and human—no different than a woman would be.

He doesn't quite know what to do next, but then Jack's hands come up and cup his head, and Jack thrusts gently into his mouth. He knows Jack's wanted him from the beginning; Jack is hardly subtle when it comes to sex. He wonders if he's anything like what Jack hoped for.

Jack rocks against him, slow and easy, until between them he and Ianto establish a rhythm. And after that it isn't long at all before Jack sighs and comes in his mouth, and Ianto has to swallow or choke. Which he manages, mostly. Jack's hand is in hair, stroking him absently, as if he were a pet, and it makes him shiver. He is cold and tired and his knees hurt and he wants desperately to brush his teeth. But he's alive.

Jack isn't always kind to his fucks, but he doesn't kill them, either. Ianto stays where he is, waiting. "That was nice, Ianto," Jack says finally. "Thank you." Like Ianto brought him coffee, and not like he knelt on a concrete floor and blew him. But it doesn't matter. "We'll have to do this again some time, when we can both enjoy it." It's the last thing Ianto wants to hear, apart from Jack's gun being cocked, but he doesn't flinch.

He stays where he is, while Jack tucks himself back in and does his trousers up. He's alive, and he can still remember Lisa, and none of the rest of it matters. He waits until Jack's gone before he gets up, stiffly, and brushes off his suit. He burns the footage from the CCTV camera in Jack's office onto a CD—for insurance—and then he goes home.


End file.
